What Should You Do Differently?

What Should You Do Differently?

by | Brand Building, Personal Development

Have you ever repeated the same actions while expecting a different outcome? You know that’s the definition of insanity, right? Sometimes we know we need to change, but don’t do it.

Why?

Well to prevent any further craziness on my part I’m doing things differently with my blog. This time I’m going to follow a basic plan for building a platform/brand which is something I ignored in the past. As I’ve mentioned before, I went straight to the dessert and skipped the main meal when I decided to write my first book instead of investing that time into building a platform.  

Fortunately, I recently rediscovered an ebook I downloaded months ago, but never read. It’s from one of my favorite writers, Jeff Goins called “12 STEPS to make a living WRITING” and it’s is perfect for people like me who starting (or re-starting ) to build an online platform.

It’s a short and action oriented ebook. There’s a section in it where Goins talks about a survey taken by a few thousand writers which revealed that,

“The average writer makes less than a dollar a month off their writing.”

 One. Freaking. Dollar.

That’s insane and unacceptable! Goins explains the reason most writers can’t earn real income from their writing is because they haven’t built an online platform they can monetize.

Why?

Most writers don’t have a plan.  

I’m going to follow the steps Goin recommends in his ebook and see where it takes me and in the process I’m going to share my updates publicly to hold myself accountable, to help others who are interested in doing something similar, and to document my journey to better understand what’s working and what’s not when it comes to building an online platform/brand.

If these steps don’t workout, I’ll ask Goins for my money back! 

Goin’s first step is to “Clarify your message with a worldview statement.” He describes the worldview statement as something that,

“The best writers understand intuitively that the writing we love to read has more to do with style than content. In other words, it’s not just what you say, but how you say it.”

He explains it can be general or specific, but the point is to use it like a compass that guides everything we write and why we write it.

Next, he shares the framework below for writing a worldview statement: 

EVERY [PEOPLE GROUP] CAN/SHOULD [ACTION]

First, for the “PEOPLE GROUP” section, I wrote the rough list below of the groups I’m most interested in helping or working with.  

  1. Everyone person
  2. Men
  3. Fathers
  4. Sons
  5. Communicators
  6. People who failed
  7. Aspiring leaders
  8. Broken people
  9. Life maximizers
  10. Regret minimizers
  11. Aspiring change agents
  12. Impact makers
  13. Purpose seekers
  14. Parents
  15. Influencers
  16. Strong men
  17. Strong people
  18. Purpose Maximizers
  19. Motivated people/individuals
  20. Employees
  21. Thinkers
  22. Teenagers
  23. People lacking hope
  24. Christians
  25. Underdogs
  26. Leaders

Next I separated the ones I found most interesting.

  1. Every person
  2. Underdogs
  3. Aspiring leaders
  4. Motivated people/individuals
  5. Leaders

The two that resonate most are leaders and motivated individuals. I love the idea of helping regular people become extraordinary leaders, so I’d like to focus on motivated individuals who don’t know or fully understand their leadership potential and their impact.

The second half of the equation is the “ACTION” that the group should take so I wrote another list.

  1. Learn to lead
  2. Reach their potential
  3. Make an impact
  4. Have positive influence
  5. Live, love, and lead on purpose (I’ve used this before)
  6. Be the leader needed
  7. Focus on impact and not income
  8. Learn to communicate
  9. Maximize their gifts
  10. Set high goals/ set goals
  11. Live on purpose
  12. Lead on purpose
  13. Push their comfort zone
  14. Choose their mindset, environment, and vision
  15. Develop their own leadership style
  16. Learn to lead themselves
  17. Fill the leadership void
  18. Pursue success
  19. Communicate on purpose
  20. Leave a legacy
  21. Have influence/ be a positive influence

From the list above, the actions I liked most are:

  • Learn to lead
  • Learn to communicate
  • Reach their potential
  • Make an impact
  • Be a positive influence

Next I narrowed my list further:

  1. Learn to lead
  2. Reach their potential
  3. Be a positive influence.

Finally, I wrote about 20 initial drafts and came up with the following worldview statement:

Inspired individuals can make the world a better place when they push their comfort zones, develop their leadership skills, and help others win.

I know my worldview statement will change, but for now it’s important to choose one and go with it. I’ve learned it’s better to start and then tweak as you go instead of always tweaking and never starting.

Don’t laugh at my statement!

It’s a work in progress. Later on, I’ll add a problem that I help others solve but for now it’s easier to move on and edit later. 

Okay so what about you?

What area of your life have you been doing the same thing but are expecting different results? What can you do differently?

How To Get More Clarity

How To Get More Clarity

by | Brand Building, Self-Awareness

How do you get clarity? What do you do when you feel stuck and need direction?

I recently wrote about how confusion can lead to chaos so this has me thinking about one of the best questions I know for developing more clarity in any area of life.

It’s a question so simple we often overlook it. 

We don’t ask this question as often as we should possibly out of fear of getting an answer we don’t want to face. But what I love about this question is that you can apply it to your marriage, career, business, health, or any area of life you feel stuck and want more clarity.

You ready for the question now?

Here it goes.

What do you really really want?

It’s that simple, but I suspect most people don’t know what they really really want. Even for me; I don’t always automatically know what I really want but when I invest some time into asking and then thinking about it things become clearer.

The problem is we are so busy we don’t stop long enough to listen to what we really want. 

 For example:

What do you really want your marriage to be like?

What do you really want your career to be like in 5 years?

What do you really want to be known for?

What types of people do you really want to associate with?

For my business goals, I can ask myself: What do I really want my business to be like in 3 years? Let me answer my own question. 

I want to have build a business and brand based on the following:

  1. Solving an actual problem (practical)
  2. Helping and inspiring people to become better (aspirational/impactful)
  3. I don’t want to exchange time for money so it should be scalable.
  4. I should be able to step away from the business and it continue running.
  5. It should be location independent.

Can I attain these goals immediately? No. But knowing what I want is like a compass. It’s giving me a direction to focus on.

The next step is creating a plan to get there. But in order to get there, I first have to identify and develop a few specific soft and hard skills to master over time.  In terms of soft skills I’m focusing on:

  • Communication
  • Leadership
  • Influence
  • Problem-solving

And for hard skills, I have to work on these:

  • Writing
  • email marketing and marketing in general
  • Web design

Despite being more comfortable with public speaking, the medium I’m thinking of using consistently is blogging.

Why am I considering blogging?:

  1. Free.
  2. Easy to learn.
  3. Helps me document my journey.
  4. I can do it from anywhere.  
  5. It gives me a chance to build a platform on my home base (my website) first versus other websites or social media sites.

I’m not 100% certain right now if blogging will be my preferred medium. The other options include vlogging and podcasting which I’m really curious about. But I want to start with ONE thing now and do it consistently.

Writing is like a filter that clarifies my thoughts before sharing them with the world. 

And the only way to find out which is the “right” medium is to experiment for a dedicated amount of time and do it consistently. Regardless of the medium, it seems like what I want to do is start building my own personal brand as some type of inspirational/leadership/personal development thought leader. 

I want to add value to the lives of others while providing inspiration, having fun, and not thinking about getting Facebook “likes” or going viral.  In the words of Pastor TD Jakes,

“I want to be effective and not famous”.

Based on my work schedule, finances, and family commitments I have to be realistic about what I can actually commit to in this season of my life. While I love public speaking and presenting the constant traveling is not something I can do right now nor something I enjoyed. And I don’t want to start a Youtube channel.

So I feel like writing, or to be more exact blogging, is the best medium for me to focus on right now.

Every medium has its pros and cons. There are millions of blogs out there so standing out will be difficult. But my goal for this blog is to be useful, practice storytelling, connect with others, and like David Goggins likes to say.

“Do something that sucks everyday”

So what area in your life could you use more clarity and apply the clarity question?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Make Adjustments Don’t Quit

Make Adjustments Don’t Quit

by | Brand Building, Leadership

To quit or not to quit.

That is the question.

But is it really? Are those the only two options we have? I think most of the time we just pose the wrong question. 

I spent more than two years writing my first book “Leader by Choice” and had plans of it being a great success and making wads of cash while going on paid international book tours.  Once I finished writing, I focused on the marketing and that’s when things went downhill. 

My plan didn’t work out so well.

Okay, I bombed it!

Actually, I didn’t have a firm marketing plan! And I didn’t come anywhere near to reaching my sales goals. In fact, I sell between 1 to 10 copies per month. While I’m grateful to sell a few copies per month this isn’t what I was expecting.

And worst of all, I’m still waiting for Oprah to invite me for an interview! 🙂 

Here’s a fun fact:

There are approximately six million books in Amazon’s Kindle store! Thousands are probably added EVERY SECOND (my calculation). I also learned the average indie publisher sells less than 100 books! That’s insane, but I now understand why.

Am I happy to have written my first book? Absolutely!

Did I learn a lot in the process? Tons.

I learned about writing, marketing, goal-setting, myself, and what doesn’t work. I also learned YOU CAN’T SELL WITHOUT A PLAN.

Most importantly, I learned how to use my writing to take control of my life’s story instead of running from it! Now I truly own my story instead of being ashamed of my past.  Writing my first book also gave me the chance to collect my thoughts, stories, and lots of material to use for public speaking. 

But this wasn’t a publishing success despite the fact that some of the people who read the book left awesome reviews. 

Where did I mess up?

Okay let’s rephrase that. So what can I do differently going forward? 

  • I didn’t reach enough people because I kept changing my marketing plan and never fully committed to any of them. SOLUTION: It would help to come with one plan and stick with you for a specific amount of time.
  • I have tiny email list, which I didn’t know (and still don’t) how to use. SOLUTION: Learn how to communicate with your subscribers before you have anything to sell. 
  • I was acting like superman by doing too much on my own . (The first few versions of the book had tons of typos and after making the changes I then uploaded the wrong version which had even more typos in it!)  Solution: GET A TEAM.

It’s so discouraging when you put so much energy, effort, and love into a project and then it flops. And that’s why I seriously considered quitting all of this online stuff/brand building stuff. I thought about giving up on my dreams of going into entrepreneurism and pursuing my goal of building a business from doing those things I enjoy most: making a positive impact in the lives of others through personal development, inspiration, and sharing leadership lessons.

Fortunately, I snapped out of it. 

It’s not first time I’ve thought about quitting and it probably won’t be the last, but I’m focused on doing things differently.  It’s like my virtual mentor Eric Thomas says,

“No quitting; just adjustments.”

Sometimes all we need to do is make minor adjustments and not huge changes. 

The biggest Mistake I Made

I’m going back to the basics and focusing on building a solid foundation first. 

Brick by brick.

The biggest mistake I made during this process was going straight to the dessert (self-publishing/writing a book) instead of starting with the main course (building a platform). 

While it’s tempting to focus on writing a book or whatever big product/idea you have the problem is that without a group of people ready to buy it it’s really hard to sell informational products online.

Can it happen? Sure. But will it happen? It’s unlikely. 

So why make it so difficult on yourself?

In life when you do the hard stuff first things are easier later on (not easy, but easier). It’s the same thing with selling online. If you do the hard work of building your platform and earning people’s trust first this will make things easier later on. 

Find Your Advantage

Most people have advantages they don’t recognize because they take it granted.

For example, my biggest advantage is that I have a good career. I earn good income, work with great people and have enough mental stimulation to avoid wanting to bang my head against my computer monitor.

This means I’m not desperately looking to replace my career with side-hustle income immediately so this gives me time to build my platform gradually without wondering if my family will eat. This give me the time to focus on doing the not-so-sexy stuff like:

  1. Building a platform.
  2. Producing content consistently.
  3. Learning how to use google analytics.
  4. Improve my writing which is not my strength.
  5. Learn how to communicate with my email list when I don’t have something to sell.

Nothing on this list is fun for me, but it’s necessary for the long-term. What about you? Are there any adjustments you can make in your life or business instead of just quitting?